An Army of Lions: The Civil Rights Struggle Before the NAACP

Epilogue

Epilogue [T]o break down color bars, . . . [to obtain] for the Afro-American an equal chance with others in the avocations of life, and to . . . [secure] the full privileges of citizenship. —Constitution of the Afro-American League, January 1890 We were welding the weapons, breasting the blows, and preparing the membership for the larger stronger organization. —W. E. B. Du Bois Immediately following T. Thomas Fortune’s death in 1928, the Amsterdam News published an extensive obituary praising the fiery journalist and civil rights activist for his long career and tireless devotion to the race, social uplift, and equal rights. The tribute to his life and work acknowledged his pioneering efforts in organizing the Afro-American League, an organization that the Amsterdam News editors referred to as “the parent of the Niagara Movement, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and all similar organizations since.” Eight years later, W. E. B. Du Bois acknowledged Fortune and his Afro-American League for laying the groundwork for the NAACP’s utilization of both agitation and a legal defense strategy. The Amsterdam News and Du Bois each recognized that the NAACP and the tactics it utilized had not developed in a vacuum. As An Army of Lions demonstrates, the League and the organizations that developed in its wake provided the ideological and tactical template upon which the NAACP was formed. The methods of agitation, legal redress, and moral suasion used by these early activists and organizations became the prototype for many of 298 Epilogue the better-known civil rights organizations of the twentieth century. The creation of the NAACP, therefore, represented a realignment or an adjustment rather than the failure of Fortune’s League idea. Indeed, the formation of the NAACP effectively marked the implementation of the merger that Bishop Alexander Walters and W. E. B. Du Bois had called for in 1908. As a result, the NAACP brought together members of the Afro-American Council , the Niagara Movement, the National Negro Independent Political League, the American Negro Academy, the Constitution League, and the Committee of Twelve rather than superseding those organizations. The NAACP centennial has come and gone. While it was a moment that many within and outside the organization privately may have wished had never had to occur—the organization should have put itself out of business long before its centennial, achieving its goals of securing full citizenship and equal rights for African Americans as protected by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution—the reality is that it is still needed to protest against injustice and abridgment of rights and has survived to continue to fight this lingering and historic battle. While it is certainly important to recognize the accomplishments of the “oldest and badest civil rights organization around,” it should be remembered that the origins and achievements of the organization rest, in part, on the thought, labor, and activism of preceding generations. As An Army of Lions reveals, a rich tradition of activism, debate, and struggle predated the NAACP. And while there are a multitude of issues that plagued the pre-NAACP civil rights organizations, these groups nonetheless fashioned a rich and multifaceted legacy of struggle as well as networks of activists that later converged to help form the NAACP. Advancing and defending black citizenship while also seeking to foster greater economic and educational opportunities for African Americans during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was not an easy undertaking. Because of the rising tide of racial discrimination, disfranchisement, and mob violence, traditional modes of political redress were limited in effectiveness. Therefore, activists involved in these pre-NAACP organizations attempted to redefine black politics after the fall of Reconstruction and the rise of white supremacy. A certain cadre of activists came together and sought to demand their rights outside of the older model of party politics and inaction of the black convention movement. During the period from the creation of the Afro-American League to the call for the NAACP, African Americans increasingly lost Epilogue 299 nearly all traces of their brief Reconstruction era influence as a political constituency . (During the late nineteenth century both political parties, but particularly the Republican Party, turned away from black voters. Additionally , the rapid growth of disfranchisement weakened the black voting block and eliminated the black officeholders.) In this political climate, through debate and contestation, individuals in the League and other...